Identifying and Advocating Best Practices in the Criminal Justice System. A Texas-Centric Examination of Current Conditions, Reform Initiatives, and Emerging Issues with a Special Emphasis on Capital Punishment.

Wednesday, 27 June 2012

News Analysis of Miller v. Alabama

"Sentencing Ruling Reflects Rethinking on Juvenile Justice," by Ethan Bronner at the New York Times. For those following juvenile justice issues it's a must-read. Here's the beginning:

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday barring mandatory life sentences for juveniles convicted of murder was the sharpest indication to date of a shift in how the American judicial system views young felons — from irredeemable predators to victims of circumstance with a potential for rehabilitation.

The change, manifest in court decisions starting in 2005, is a result of a confluence of factors: a drop-off in the crack-related crime wave that began in the late 1980s and that led states to move violent juveniles into the adult system and create mandatory prison terms for some crimes; an explosion in scientific research on adolescent brain development; a desire to cut costs by reducing prison populations; and the frustration of juvenile judges with mandatory sentencing.

Together, experts say, the developments seem to be opening a new chapter in juvenile justice only two decades after a markedly different approach took firm hold.

“What we are seeing is a very stark and important rethinking of how we treat juvenile criminal offenders,” said Marsha Levick, who co-founded the nonprofit Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia in 1975. “For years we were trying to convince the courts that kids have constitutional rights just like adults. Now we realize that to ensure that kids are protected, we have to recognize that they are actually different from adults.”

That sense of difference has fueled the Supreme Court decisions of the past seven years — first a ruling that barred the death penalty for juveniles in 2005; one that banned life in prison for juveniles convicted of crimes other than homicide in 2010; and now Monday’s ruling that rendered invalid state laws requiring youths convicted of homicide as well to die in prison. That decision will lead to resentencing hearings for about 2,000 convicts — some of them now well into middle age — in more than two dozen states.

Justice Elena Kagan announced the decision in Miller v. Alabama, 10-9646, for a 5-4 majority, asserting that juveniles' "lesser culpability" makes it unconstitutional for them to be sentenced under a scheme that does not give the judge the ability to consider factors such as the defendant's age, maturity and upbringing in determining the sentence. "Youth matters," Kagan said from the bench.

The ruling paves the way for roughly 2,000 inmates nationwide to seek reversal of their life sentences, according to Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and the lawyer for the two inmates whose cases were ruled on by the high court.

Said Stevenson, "This is an incredibly important step forward in recognizing one of the great tragedies of our time," namely the large-scale incarceration of juveniles under sentences that give them no hope of release after rehabilitation.

But Stevenson warned of a coming crisis in finding enough lawyers to represent the inmates who are entitled to relief because of ruling. Many are in states that do not provide lawyers for indigent defendants on appeal.

The ruling marked the growing clout of Kagan on the Supreme Court, as well as the continuing importance of Justice Anthony Kennedy as the court's swing justice. He provided a fifth vote to the liberal-wing justices Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer. As the senior justice in the majority, Kennedy gave the job of writing the decision to Kagan, a major assignment for a relatively junior justice. Kagan joined the court in 2010.

Reviewing the court's recent precedents, which have struck down the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole for nonhomicide juvenile offenders, Kagan wrote, "imposition of a state's most severe penalties on juvenile offenders cannot proceed as though they were not children."

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The StandDown Texas Project

The StandDown Texas Project was organized in 2000 to advocate a moratorium on executions and a state-sponsored review of Texas' application of the death penalty.
To stand down is to go off duty temporarily, especially to review safety procedures.

Steve Hall

Project Director Steve Hall was chief of staff to the Attorney General of Texas from 1983-1991; he was an administrator of the Texas Resource Center from 1993-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Congress and several Texas legislators. Hall is a former journalist.